Letters to the Editor, Sunday, July 1, 2018

Children should not be separated

I reject the separation of children and parents at the border.

As a physician, I have performed medical evaluations of people seeking asylum in order to verify their claims of being tortured in other countries. Their stories and their scars are compelling. I have consistently been impressed that they are people like you and me, and I feel they should be treated respectfully, in accordance with our laws and our religious values and common decency.

Whatever happened to the Republican Party being for family values? Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Francis Rooney were remarkably quiet about this issue and cowardly in not robustly opposing it. If you are not part of the solution, gentlemen, you are part of the problem.

Thankfully, Sen. Bill Nelson has loudly opposed the President Donald Trump-GOP policy of family separation and instead has been advocating for keeping families intact. I am grateful for that effort.

Donald Belmont, M.D., Naples

Zero means zero

Zero tolerance for zero tolerance. Enough said.

Laurine Trimble, Naples

Send Holden to Washington

We are so lucky. We have a candidate for Congress, David Holden, who shares our concerns for clean air and water, sensible gun laws, affordable health care for all, public education, and the need to bring sanity back to Washington.

We are witnessing the worst we can be. We have ripped nursing infants away from their mothers. We are placing children in cages in scorching heat. We are scattering children all over the country with no plan to reunite them with their parents. This administration in no way reflects what we want to be in the future.

We need a Democratic Congress that reflects our values and priorities. Primaries are important. Go vote. Send Holden to Washington.

Pauline Shea, Naples

NEWSLETTERS

Get the Florida Voices newsletter delivered to your inbox

We're sorry, but something went wrong

Florida Voices tells the stories of everyday Floridians, examining what issues matter most to them in the Sunshine State.

U.S. Embassy available

There are nine U.S. consulates and one U.S. Embassy in Mexico where non-U.S. citizens can apply for citizenship without any risk of being separated from their children.

Am I missing something?

Cheryl Laventure, Bonita Springs

Economic disaster looming

The annual budget deficit is the amount added to our national debt in a year. Annual increases in deficits accelerate the pace of debt growth and decreases retard it.

Deficits are recorded on a fiscal year basis. The fiscal year is the 12-month period beginning Oct. 1 of one year and running through Sept. 30 of the following year. The identification of a fiscal year is the calendar year in which it ends. As a result, the deficit in a fiscal year arises from the budget in the previous calendar year.

Office of Management and Budget data, as reported at whitehouse.com/omb/historical-tables, show that the growth in debt was accelerated by an annual average rate of 12 percent during the terms of President Ronald Reagan (1981-88); accelerated by 17 percent during the term of President George H.W. Bush (1989-92); retarded by 19 percent during the terms of President Bill Clinton (1993-2000); accelerated by 150 percent during the terms of President George W. Bush (2001-08); retarded by 7 percent during the terms of President Barack Obama (2009-16), and accelerated by 25 percent in the first year of President Donald Trump’s administration.

While all four Republican administrations added at an accelerated rate, the two Democratic administrations have retarded the rate.

With an acceleration rate of 25 percent, the Trump administration will add $1.25 trillion to the debt in 2019, $1.56 trillion in 2020, $1.95 trillion in 2021, and yearly additions will keep on rising. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that an additional $1.5 trillion will be added to the debt every year, arising from the recent tax cut bill. The current debt level is $20 trillion and by 2022 it will exceed $30 trillion, spelling an unimaginable economic disaster.

Mukhtar M. Ali, Marco Island

Searching for America

America, where are you? Where have you gone? You didn’t just leave us, did you? Are you in hiding, or has something terrible happened?

I look for you every day, but I can’t find you. I know you’re not happy with what is taking place in your country, but please come back. We need you desperately, especially now. We cannot survive without you.

May God help us if you have given up on us.

John D’Aquanno Jr., Naples

Trump loves dictators

Trump got nothing but a signed piece of paper, with no concrete promises, while the Korean dictator received equal “worldly” status with the United States. Plus the president called off future “war games” with our great partner South Korea. What a deal! We now know for sure where Trump’s bone spurs are located — certainly not in his feet.

Trump stated it was a great honor to meet the murderous little dictator, who has killed relatives and imprisoned over 100,000 of his own people. He also stated that the dictator loves his people, probably to death.

In 2005, North Korea signed an agreement with President George W. Bush’s administration and South Korea, China, Russia and Japan. North Korea agreed to not pursue or produce nuclear weapons in return for aid. What happened? The North Koreans developed and produced nuclear weapons.

Our president seems to love all dictators and killers, such as Vladimir Putin of Russia. Putin has returned Russia back to communism, owning or controlling big business, controlling the media and his people with propaganda, and holding rigged elections. It’s obvious that Putin has had many political opponents killed, with 39 unsolved murders alone since 2014. He tried to kill another opponent and his daughter in the United Kingdom this year.

Naturally, Trump loves Putin, since we know now he helped elect Trump to the presidency, along with WikiLeaks and former FBI Director James Comey.

If they ever have a Noble Prize for prevaricators, our president would win hands down.

E.L. “Bud” Ruff, Naples

Chaos, confusion, anarchy

We’re now well enough into the current presidential administration’s history that we can see recurring patterns emerging. The pattern generally follows three stages: First chaos, then confusion and finally anarchy.

We’ve now seen this in the lack of "deals" on immigration, health care, spending cuts, the North American Free Trade Agreement, China trade, steel and aluminum, the Middle East, the Qatar blockade, Syria, Russia (both sanctions and collusion), Iran nukes, climate change, and Pacific trade. In all cases, there has been a major pronouncement followed by a flurry of confusion, leading to anarchy. And anarchy is always followed by a change of subject.

Which leads one to remember the old axiom, “First, resist beginning ... until you consider the end.”

Richard Martinez, Naples

Keep families together

I hope you will support narrow, stand-alone legislation to stop President Donald Trump’s administration from separating immigrant children from their families. The practice is appalling. However, I note that the president could stop this in a minute by rescinding his "zero-tolerance" policy. Prosecution is, after all, discretionary.

As with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals kids before this, the president is holding these children prisoners, demanding a ransom of fulfilling one or more of the four "pillars" of his legislative agenda. Despicable. He is no better than pirates.

Do not negotiate with him. Not now, not ever. Hold his feet to the fire and make him do the right thing. Keep families together. Congress can do this with a veto-proof majority.

Gloria Garber, Naples

What ticks him off

• It's all the fly-by-night businesses and some legislative ones that stick their cheap signs all over the landscape. It's littering. I'm not selling my home for cash to some idiot who puts a 50-cent sign in the ground.

• The guy in front of you at McDonald's gets to the front and stares at the menu. Figure it out before you get there.

• Getting gas at Costco, especially in season. Big lines and you wait. Finally, the car in front is done and instead of driving away the driver starts to check his or her cellphone or fiddle about. Sometimes a tap on the horn helps.

• Robot calls: just don't answer, you didn't win anything.

• The express line at Publix. OK, so you have 15 items and you're chatting up the cashier you know. But don't wait to look in your purse for your credit card after you've been tallied up.

Let's hope attorney Michael Cohen flips by next month so I don't have to go back to writing about more serious issues.